Amol K. Patil

Patil, a conceptual and performance artist, said once that his artwork, is an ever reaching attempt to recapture the vibrating movement and sound of the ‘chawl’ architecture in which he grew up a form of 5;storey social housing for mill and factory workers built in the early;1900s, with many tenements fit close together and long verandahs connecting every door of children running on floorboards above, the gossiping voices from dimly lit tables under which men gather to play carrom, the man with a walking stick, the sound of termites eating into wood, wedding festivities, and rhythmically creaking beds.

The ‘K’ inserted into his name, is after Kisan Patil, the artist’s father whom he lost at a young age, and whom after discovering his own affinity for performance art he tries to know, beyond his father’s work as a civil engineer in the Bombay’s Municipal Corporation, through the objects he found in old cupboards. An old dicta; tape recorder, a walkman, and cassettes capture sounds and immigrant dialects his father must have recorded for his typed grassroots, avant;garde theatre;scripts about the dilemma of living as a migrant within the city, performed within the industrial mill areas of Bombay, as well as the found hand;written songs of his poet grandfather. The songs come from a protest tradition since the 17th;century called ‘Powada’, much in use before and after national independence, still found today, that not so much sing, but in rap form, spit out furious words, against the caste system, and the revolutionary spoken;word histories of BR Ambedkar, the author of the Indian constitution, and the Dalit thinker who gave India roads out of caste and toward social equality.

Twelve Gates Arts (12G) is a non profit (501(c)(3)) organization created with the aim to showcase international multidisciplinary arts bound by the sensibilities of a diasporic identity, especially the South Asian identity, and to create and promote projects in the community that cross geographic and cultural boundaries.

12G is a proud ACAW Consortium member - a dynamic citywide platform that connects leading New York and Asia-based museums and galleries to present cutting-edge exhibitions, innovative projects, and provocative dialogues.